Only a few weeks ago we wrote the following; ‘The new virus has affected tens of thousands of Chinese citizens and spread to over 40 countries. The respiratory infection has claimed 3000 lives so far and been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).’ The virus has now spread to over 140...
The new virus has affected tens of thousands of Chinese citizens and spread to over 40 countries. The respiratory infection has claimed 3000 lives so far and been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Infections of the virus, known as Covid-19 now, have been recorded in S. Korea, Iran, Italy,...
Graham Frost is the Chief Investment Officer for PK Wealth, our discretionary fund management service. Graham leads the asset allocation and investment research process for PK Wealth and was previously CIO at BestInvest. Graham kindly took some time to answer some questions on our online automated investment service, KlikInvest.
Review of the quarter The equity and credit markets are coping with trade uncertainty remarkably well. Conversely, the government bond market paints a bleak picture of the outlook with yields having plunged near previous lows. If both are correct, the market is expecting more Quantitative Easing – printing money to drive bond yields down...
Review of the quarter Both equities and bonds rallied strongly across the world, the opposite of the previous quarter. At the end of last year investors worried about trade wars, rising US interest rates, and slowing world growth. The trigger for the relief was the US Federal Reserve changing stance to become softer on...
Review of the year The year opened well but in February, investors began to fret about Trump tariffs and the start of a US-China trade war. Elsewhere in the world, Merkel struggled to establish a coalition government in Germany. In emerging markets, the beginnings of crises in Argentina and Turkey became apparent by April....
Out of Sync? In our last quarterly overview, we noted that consensus expectations of continued synchronised global growth were likely to disappoint. With the exception of the USA, most regions experienced a slowdown. Trump’s pro-cyclical fiscal stimulus has resulted in a booming economy that has driven US stocks and interest rates higher. The resultant...
Synchronised Global Slowdown? Synchronised global expansion has remained in place so far this year. Economic consensus is that this will continue this year and next. However, the first quarter showed slower growth than expected. That was blamed on bad weather so a big bounce back was anticipated for the second quarter. That seems not...
Synchronised Global Growth Synchronised global expansion remained in place in the first quarter, with most lead indicators pointing to continued growth during the rest of the year. Yet, after an initial surge in January, primarily due to US tax reductions and government spending increases, equity markets began falling. Given worries over North Korea have...
Review of the year 2017 was full of political noise but investors pushed risk assets higher. Trump’s approach to politics has been met with incredulity but investors have focused on the potential gains for corporate profits. In Europe, political risk had been well flagged thanks to the UK’s Brexit referendum and the Italian referendum...